Bipolar and food choices? What do you eat?

mmmm donuts....

Just a heads up on that book it is like 475 pages of reviewing scientific literature so it can get a little tedious and technical at times, but it is interesting and if you are into that kind of stuff it will probably enjoy it. If you have a local university or college you might be able to use their computers (I can use my laptop but only because I have a school ID that I connect with) which would give you access to a lot if not all the peer reviewed journals (where scientists publish their research). They almost always start with an abstract that sums the whole paper up so you don't have to dedicate extra time to reading when it is not the information you thought it was.

Me too just can't stick with it. I loved the warning "It's important to remember that correlation does not imply causation" it really tickled my nerdy funny bone. Do you have any resources about vegetarianism and emotional stability?

All very interesting. Thanks so much you guys. Last night I was looking up the book yanks recommended and I came across Grain Brain. Now I am not into going whole hog about any of these food things and am reading it with a critical eye and all of that. But what I am going to say here is that I never thought before really about food and the brain. Well not totally true I have thought about gluten and the brain. I have a proven gluten problem and I thought well maybe this is part of the whole brain problem I have but...

The point is I realized that I spend a lot more time thinking about heart related diet health and not any about brain related diet health. So the idea of learning about what the brain needs is I think an important one when you have a brain disorder

And I know we all have different brains and I guess it is sort of a guess and check about what might work. I just am trying to do what I can to get a little more steady without messing with my meds.

I honestly do feel better with less carbs/ grains and sugar for sure but I need to chart it out. It is hard to tell you know because Bipolar changes things up so how do you know for sure what does it? But I generally have a background agitated anxiety and brain fog and night time anxiety which definitely is better without as many carbs. That has been pretty apparent. My diet has been very carb heavy.

It is crazy right. Like food has to do with what you look like (weight I guess) and not how you feel. Like nobody says 'oh I'm feeling a little annexious maybe I'll just have some cranberries and calm down (not sure if that would work just an example). But you hear all the time 'I'm feeling a little doughy maybe I should cut back on red meat for awhile'. Hope that made sense

i eat a lot of chicken.

chicken nuggets, chicken wings, roast chicken, chicken in sauce, chicken burgers.

massive chicken fan

for breakfast usually have some sort of fruit, (and when i can't it's toast with marmite, or sausage rolls)

i'm honestly not the healthiest when it comes to eating.

but i take the attitude.. i'll eat what i like. if i enjoy it, i'll eat it and worry about the complications later (not the best thing to do, but yeah. )

oh, and lashings of chocolate and sugary sweets

I eat everything and anything though I shouldn't. I mentioned in another thread or two I have a fetish about gaining weight. I've been deliberately gaining. I've put on about 40 lbs in the past 3 years, and want to gain another 30. The part about what I shouldn't eat is the carbs. I am very carb sensitive, and insulin resistant with Metabolic Syndrome. Yes, my weight probably contributes to it. I'm also non-celiac gluten intolerant. I've been on keto, paleo/primal and Weight Watchers but couldn't stick to any of them. When I'm off carbs for a while, I don't get the cravings, and I lose. But eating a lot of carbs fuels my weight gain, which reinforces my desire to gain. If I can break the carb addiction, I'll lose weight and the desire to gain. I become fatphobic. So in the end I believe a keto or primal diet does change brain chemistry.

This is very interesting. I have to say that this is the first time I ever heard of someone wanting to be fat. Just proves how we can never assume anything.

Oh yeah it's very common, mostly among gay males. It's contrary to the popular belief that gay males are all about physical beauty. Well, to some of us other fat guys are beautiful. I weight train also and was a powerlifter until I had to scale it back due to some (ironically non-gym) injuries. The fat powerlifter and strongman build is more attractive to me than a ripped bodybuilder. Though I wouldn't throw his clothes at him and tell him to get the eff out now.

Wow well thank you for educating me see how much we learn when we meet different people on the internet ha .

I'm still feeling very good eating less carbs. Maybe I'm just placeboing myself. But hey if it works it works. Maybe I should just keep finding things to placebo myself with. Ha

Unfortunately, I am another one who usually does not have a good appetite. Especially when I'm agitated buzzy which is usually a lot of the time. At least mildly. And I only ever feel like eating the stuff I can't eat as a vegan...cheese, meat, eggs.

And when my mood is crapping out I tend to binge on some version of fried potato. I know awesome right.

I lived through my mixed episode forcing myself to eat a toaster scramble a day (normally I would not be in the same room with a toaster scramble but dang are they good. I have a strong love of a lot of crap food. Which is funny because I am also mostly obsessively healthy. What can I say). Oh and sometimes. Handful of chicken nuggets on top of that.

But my point of the appetite thing is that I feel more level blood sugar wise when I eat little bits of more fatty things all day.

Like I mentioned previously, what I remember as my most depression and anxiety free time of life (although perhaps it was just a long hypo...but hey I could live with a stable hypo that never crashed...that's a dream) was when I gave up gluten cold turkey and embraced the whole traditional foods movement stuff. So at that time I went from eating a ton of grains and being mostly a low fat vegetarian to eating tons more vegetables, eggs, fat, animal protein, and much less grains. And I felt great for a long time and then gradually fell off the wagon until I was eating gluten and grains all the time again with crappy meat products and then I lost my ****.

That wasn't the last time I lost my **** but I can't keep typing right now ha. Cuz I know you want my food autobiography.

Anyway it is really interesting hearing everyone's experiences and ideas.

I am all for being skeptical and critical and realizing the research says all different stuff but there does seem to be tons of anecdotal accounts of people making their bipolar better with these kinds of diets.

I don't like at all when people or their doctors say their bipolar was "cured". One because it seems silly to me when it is a disorder that cycles....

And two because I just think it is poor form

And three it makes me question their credibility

BUT if people are reporting feeling THAT much better ...so much so that they feel like the whole freaking thing actually went away (even for awhile)...

Then I'm down with that. Sign me up. It's worth a try anyway

Unless I have a heart attack because those other docs are right. The ones who say fat is bad. Hmm brain or heart...brain or heart...tough one...

Well maybe not if your brain is messed up. I don't know. Rambling now. I better watch it you guys are going to think I'm hypo.

I'm not! I don't feel THAT good

Ah, you're welcome.

I did find a study linking vegetarianism and depression.

Vegetarian diet and mental disorders: results from a representative community survey

Interesting. I had never heard it before.

I think I would be more depressed if I gave up my personal ethics so I could eat meat.

I just recently started to change my diet to reflect healthier food choices. It's given me something to focus on since my husband died. When he was alive we always ate out and I made unhealthy foods and I couldn't stick to a diet because he would tell me all the time that I'm beautiful and that I don't need to lose weight so I would quit the diet and go back to eating processed junk...I do miss that about him (along with everything else). Now that he is not here I am focusing on cutting down on processed foods and eating more vegetables and fruits. I'm trying to eat less sugar but I still have a small treat every day because if I don't I will end up bingeing later in the week because I feel deprived.

I can't do low carb. Proteins do not fill me up. Without carbs I am starving all day and then binge because I'm so hungry. It has never worked for me. So now I'm just trying to get my carbs from fruit and whole grain instead of sugar.

I'm having a problem cooking as of late - it's very triggering to me to cook because I used to cook all the time when my husband was alive and now that he's not I just don't see the point in cooking if he can't enjoy it with me. But my goal is to get myself to cook something maybe once a week for dinner so I can get back in the swing of it. Right now I live on cheese sandwiches and salads and preformed turkey burgers....anything that doesn't require effort. I'm hoping to make salmon tonight and break this aversion to cooking. That way I won't have to eat out as much and won't have as much processed food at restaurants.

I don't know if it will make me feel better mentally but it makes me feel better about myself so that's a win.

Well my brother is an RN and from his knowledge the main place the paleo diet and Atkins diets fall short are the people who over due it. A little whole grain is OK. Look at Native Americans before the white man came. So my brother showed me how the paleo diet was a good base to start but depending on your goals determined your diet. I'll use myself as an example. I live in the Texas panhandle we have plenty of cattle, grain fields, and lots of farms. So red meat is extremely cheap. You try feeding a family of six on tofu that costs almost $2 a lb vs ground beef that's around $1 a lb. Chicken isn't bad, enough of the local farmers raise them, but good seafood forget it if it ain't in a can you're outta luck. Then we have several hog farms around. So my diet consists of a mix of red meat chicken and pork. With a good mix of veggies that we grow out back in the garden. That's breakfast, lunch, and dinner. My normal doctor told me my last physical to quit what I'm doing cause I won't make him any money, jokingly of course.

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I eat food. I try to eat real food. I don't care for carbs and yadda yadda, I like my meat, I like my bread... I just try to avoid the chemicals and the unnatural ****.

I like Asian food, I think I can cook it well... and of course Czech and Ukrainian food (a store with import food from UA opened in Prague). Problem with these foods is they are... very fatty.

I am also caffeine addict.

So overall, I live horribly considering all these trendy diets and opinons. Like not skipping entire food groups and replacing foods for some low fat low carb no gluten no taste no enjoyment version lol.

When I am well, I eat very well. Fresh vegies, meat (no hormones apparently), fish, dairy, eggs, low GI and low sugar (including sugar from fruits and unprocessed foods - still counts as sugar guys). I cook every day.

When I am unwell.... I take zyprexa and eat a whole lot of burgers and chocolate. Now I am overweight despite exercise and eating well again since the last blip.

Beer is my treat and something I am once again trying to cut down on. I was good for ages, get unstable, then start drinking again. (Mainly cos all my mates think a beer is the cure for all evil in life)